As a crafty type person, Pinterest is a personal obsession.  I can easily lose myself for hours just browsing fun things to try.  I’ve been on Pinterest in some form or another since it was in Beta testing and in that time I have encountered my fair share of AWESOME pins and ones that were EPIC FAILURES.  And I constantly see memes on Facebook joking about how everyone pins things, but no one actually tries them.

Well, I try them.  I have tried my fair share of things I’ve seen on Pinterest with varying degrees of success.  So, in light of that, I decided to begin to share my successes and failure with you so you don’t have to learn the hard way if a pin works or not.

Let’s start with DIY Stamp Cleaner.  This seems like an odd thing to make.  In fact, until a month ago, I didn’t even know there was such a thing as stamp cleaner.  I’ll be honest, I’m not a stamper.  But my Silhouette Cameo now cuts cling stamp material and I had to try that out.  The problem was that I couldn’t find any information about how to clean Silhouette Brand Stamp Material.  Nadda.  There was a tutorial video I watch that was made by Silhouette and she said she uses baby wipes or a wet paper towel.  But baby wipes aren’t cheap and I realistically use enough of them before they go bad.  But are DIY Baby Wipes safe for stamps?  No Clue.  And the internet doesn’t seem to know either.

So, after an exhaustive search (ie: Days spent on this) I finally found a recipe tucked away in a random forum that I now can’t find again (I wish I could!).

The recipe is simple:

2 Tablespoons glycerin

8 oz. distilled water

1 teaspoon baby wash

I went onto Ebay (one of my favorite places for inexpensive stuff that I’m not likely to need all of so I’ll feel better if I end up tossing it) and found a lovely little glycerine place and nabbed some Baby Wash.  Which, it turns out, is a real thing.  Who knew?

I didn’t use distilled water.  I figured if Silhouette America says I can clean them with water, I probably don’t need to shell out money for fancy water.

I then cut up one of my husbands old T-Shirts into small squares and shove them in a cleaned olive jar that I had previously spray painted with chalkboard paint (a personal obsession of mine).

Mix, pour. Done.

Does it work?  Yes.

Is it great? Meh…

It works as a stamp cleaner, but the glycerine leaves a residue that I can’t stand.  Really, I think the baby wash and water would probably do the trick.  I’m going to try the recipe with less glycerine next time to see what happens, but over all, this seemed like a waste of time and money.  I am making a large assumption that this formula is important for actual stampers because of whatever their stamps are made out of.  But hey, I gave it a shot.

NOTE: You do need to clean your Silhouette Brand Stamp Material.  As you use your stamps, they become seasoned so they hold ink better, but they also cling less effectively and you are more likely to end up with them moving around your acrylic block (I learned that the hard way, hence the search for stamp cleaner).  Rinsing them in water will work for a while, but eventually you are going to have to actually clean them.

****UPDATE****

Now that I’ve been using this for a while, I have found that the reside is only really on the acrylic block for my stamps.  The stamps themselves seem to do just fine with the glycerin and it does clean them wonderfully.  I have taken to keeping a clean cloth around and wiping the acrylic block down with it after I clean it with the cleaner to keep that residue to a minimum.